March 17, 2007
Board Member Doris Voitier Receives Profiles in Courage Award

A member of the Board of Directors of Network for Instructional TV, Inc. (NITV) has been named a recipient of the 2007 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award™.

Doris Voitier, Superintendent of Schools for St. Bernard Parish (county), Louisiana, was honored for her courageous fight to rebuild the schools of St. Bernard Parish after Hurricane Katrina, despite pervasive devastation and bureaucratic indifference. She was presented the prestigious award for political courage by Caroline Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy during a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. 

Doris Voitier began her career as a math teacher and had served in the St. Bernard Parish public school system for more than 30 years when she was appointed Superintendent in August, 2004.  One year later, when every building in St. Bernard Parish was damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Voitier worked boldly and tirelessly, without help from the state or federal government, to reopen school doors to any student who might return home. With one borrowed computer, no working phones, and no emergency grant money, Voitier took out loans to hire disaster clean-up teams, secure portable classrooms, and rent trailers to house a skeletal teaching staff that agreed to work for reduced pay. Just weeks after the storm, Voitier reopened the first school to some 300 returning students, out of more than 8,000 who had been enrolled in parish schools before the disaster. By August 2007, just two years after the community succumbed to 15 feet of water, St. Bernard Parish will have reopened five school buildings to serve nearly 4,000 returning students. 

The award was presented to Voitier and to Bill White, Mayor of Houston, Texas, who offered refuge in his city to displaced residents of Louisiana and Mississippi. White and Voitier were held up by members of the Profile in Courage Award Committee as emblematic of the many public servants throughout the devastated region who showed courageous and decisive leadership in addressing the human misery and ruin caused by Hurricane Katrina.

“Mayor Bill White and Doris Voitier demonstrated tremendous courage in the face of extraordinary odds and they serve as an inspiration to us all,” said Caroline Kennedy, President of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. “Mayor White’s quick actions evacuating thousands of families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita most certainly helped to save lives. Despite insurmountable odds, Doris Voitier rebuilt the schools of St. Bernard Parish, making sure the children of her community had a place to learn and grow when they returned home. They are both true profiles in courage.”